The same object may be looked at from different points of view. We may consider God objectively or from our subjective aspect, as He is in Himself or as He is towards us, as the Supreme Life or as our particular spiritual life, as the Infinite and Perfect who transcends all things, or as the source of our individual perfection and happiness. Parallel to the aspects of God are the aspects of sin. We may take it as an outrage against the Supreme Majesty and highest Law, or as the cause of personal evils, intense and eternal. Hence the two kinds of sorrow of sin, Contrition and Attrition. There is much in common be tween the two. Each is supernatural; each has the same ultimate object, viz., God as the source of the supernatural order and of salvation; each rests on motives made known by faith; each includes love, i.e., adhesion to Life and striving for its maintenance. But there are important differences between Contrition and Attrition. The one looks at sin from the point of view of God, the other from the point of view of man; the one looks to God directly in Himself, the other indirectly through our own hopes and fears; the one is inspired by love of the absolute infinite Life, the other by love of the communicated life which we possess; one is more disinterested, the other more personal. Contrition is primarily a love which leads to affliction: Attrition is an affliction which leads to love. You are happy if you have Attrition even; but aspire to the highest sorrow and love.
